FEATURE: China restores Chiang Kai-shek’s Nanjing house

Soong’s achievements are on display in an exhibition which praises her for building support for China in its fight against Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, and her charitable causes.

“She had class,” tour-guide Chen Chen said. “Soong Ching-ling (宋慶齡), the second one, was very pretty.”

The middle Soong sister, Ching-ling, was Sun’s wife and stayed in China after the Communist takeover. The eldest of the trio, Soong Ai-ling (宋靄齡), married financier Kung Hsiang-hsi (孔祥熙).

Since opening in October, tens of thousands have paid the 30 yuan (US$5) ticket price to see the house, but it has proved especially popular with the elderly, some of them old enough to remember Chiang’s time.

A panel in one part of the exhibition reads: “The perfect combination of traditional Chinese architectural style and modern Western construction technology puts this building in the perfect realm of architectural history in modern China.”